Introduction
Loss of biodiversity is one of the most severe global environmental
challenges today (Ceballos et al ., 2015; 2017). The extinction of
hundreds of species and populations every year, especially vertebrates,
has been well studied (Ceballos et al ., 2017), and carnivores,
which include species such as bears, wolves, and wild cats, are one of
the most vulnerable groups (Vié et al ., 2009).
Jaguars (Panthera onca ) are the largest felid species in the
Neotropics and their need for suitable habitat with abundant prey
(Hunter, 2011) makes them vulnerable to the same type of human-generated
threats faced by other emblematic carnivore species such as lions and
tigers, namely, habitat loss and fragmentation, hunting, decrease in
prey abundance, disease, and illegal trafficking (Ripple et al .,
2014; Loveridge et al ., 2016). About half of the 36 felid species
are listed as threatened by the International Union for Conservation of
Nature (Macdonald and Loveridge, 2010; Hunter, 2011; Durant et
al ., 2017; Ghimirey and Acharya, 2017). Historical jaguar distribution
range extended almost continuously from southern United States to
central Argentina, and in Mexico its range currently extends along the
coastal plain of the Sierra Madre Occidental and Oriental down to the
Isthmus of Tehuantepec and into the Yucatán Peninsula (Ceballos, 2011).
Yucatán Peninsula supports largest jaguar population in Mexico and
second in the Americas (Chávez, 2010; de la Torre et al ., 2017),
it is part of the largest contiguous tropical forests in Mesoamerica
which extends through Chiapas, Quintana Roo and Petén in northern
Guatemala and Belize (Ceballos et al ., 2002; Briceño-Méndezet al ., 2017). A key component of the Mesoamerican Hotspot (Myerset al ., 2000).
An increasing number of animal movement studies, especially those
involving predator-prey interactions, has highlighted the role of human
activities in ecosystem endangerment (Chapman and Reyna-Hurtado, 2019).
As opportunistic predators, jaguars hunt prey relative to its abundance
(Rabinowitz and Nottingham, 1986; Aranda and Sanchez-Cordero, 1996;
Garla, Setz and Gobbi, 2001), but other studies (Emmons 1987; Novack,
2003) have shown that forest jaguars exhibit species-specific prey
selection. Predator-prey dynamics appear to be largely regulated by the
hunting ability of the predator and avoidance strategies of the prey.
While nocturnal predators like jaguars (Harmsen et al ., 2009) are
usually less abundant than the species upon which they prey because of
their position at the top of the trophic chain, temporal and spatial
overlap among predator and prey may be as important as the relative
abundance of prey in predicting encounter probabilities and defining
opportunistic tendencies (Griffiths, 1975). Additionally, predators can
maximize their hunting effort pay-off when prey are most vulnerable to
attack (Fedriani et al ., 1999).
Assessments of predator and prey joint occupation (co-occurrence) and
movements in a landscape could provide important insight into the
predator-prey interactions and help explain if the spatial arrangement
of a predator species and its potential prey is randomly determined or
if it is driven by avoidance patterns of the prey species. In this
study, we model the spatial distribution and movement of jaguars and
five of their main prey species to estimate their co-occurrence in the
study site.